In praise of Armentrout’s year as mayor (Dec. 18)
By Chuck Doud
The Madera Tribune
It was good to see former Mayor Sam Armentrout in attendance at Wednesday’s City Council meeting. He had missed the last few meetings because he has been fighting lymphoma, a type of cancer involving cells of the immune system.
Treatment, which he has been receiving at Stanford University Medical Center, involves many options, none of them fun. Treatment and recovery can take a lot out of a person, and can take months.
Armentrout was absent from the council meeting Dec. 2 where he would have turned the gavel over to the new mayor, Gary Svanda. At that time, he would have heard many words of praise about his year as mayor, and it would have been praise that he deserved.
When he began his term a year ago, he pledged to be the “green mayor,” to lead the city into a new era of sustainability, and he kept that promise.
To kick this drive off, he hosted a meeting at the Madera Municipal Golf Course, where he and his fellow council members, along with city staff members, wore green T-shirts as a reminder that they were there to talk about such concepts as energy conservation, lowering the city’s carbon footprint and encouraging the use of solar energy and alternative fuels, such as natural gas.
The city already had begun such initiatives to some extent, but Armentrout used his bully pulpit as mayor to sell the concept. As a result, sustainability now is an integral part of how the city serves its citizens. Madera will be a better place because of it.
He also can take a good part of the credit for the adoption of the districting map that occurred Wednesday during the City Council meeting. He was forthright, even before he became mayor, in moving the districting process forward, and he was insistent that the months-long process treat all the citizens of the city fairly.
Armentrout served us well as mayor. We wish him every success in his battle with lymphoma.
